Titan launches Titan Steel; Rs 2-crore ad campaign to break soon

Made of ‘pure steel’, the newly launched Titan Steel watches are priced between Rs 1,250 and Rs 6,000

Titan Industries announced the launch of a new collection of watches called Titan Steel at a press conference held in the capital yesterday. Made of ‘pure steel', the Titan Steel watches are priced between Rs 1,250 and Rs 6,000. The collection has a range of bracelet- and leather-strap watches for men and women in 90 different styles.

The product essentially targets urban men and women in the age group of 25-35 years who have an active nightlife and take interest in complementing their outfits with accessories, especially watches. The ad campaign of Titan Steel attempts to project the nightlife of the target audience in a dramatic way to put forth the message ‘Nightlife Will Never Be The Same'. The Rs 2-crore multimedia campaign, created by O&M Bangalore, is slated to break in the first week of October.

While the print ads will appear in English newspapers such as the Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Hindu etc, and a few vernaculars, the TV commercial will appear on all the STAR channels and such niche channels as AXN and BBC World. This will be supported by some outdoor activities. The company will also leverage the net to promote Titan Steel. Fabmart, the general interest site, will host some promotions for the newly launched product.

Apart form the Titan Steel campaign, next month Titan will launch fresh campaigns (at an estimated budget of Rs 2.5 crore) for Nebula and Regalia (two sub-brands of Titan). Again the campaign is going to be a mix of print and TV.

Bijou Kurien, vice-president, sales and marketing, Titan Industries, is quite kicked about Titan Steel. "We hope that the campaign impacts the audience in the way we intend to. Steel is very much in vogue and we are offering consumers an opportunity to move towards a more individualistic and bolder look. Geometric forms and straight lines characterise the collection with blue, black and white dials."

However, the designs in the Titan Steel collection does not seem to be significantly different from the steel collection of international watch manufactures such as Omega (Swatch Irony) or Esprit. Kurien disagrees. "There is a difference. We have designed watches that will look good on Indian men and women's wrists. Their wrists are smaller than foreigners. The Titan watches are meant for Indian wrists and our designs are not the same as others."

In the next six months (that is, till the end of the current fiscal), Titan expects sales of 1.5 lakh Titan Steel watches. And hopes the number to go up to half a million next fiscal. The Titan steel collection will be available in all the 122 exclusive Titan Showrooms. The number of these showrooms will also go up to 150 by the year-end.

Currently, Titan leads the estimated 12-million-units-per-year organised watch market with a market share of just over 50 per cent. Timex, at the second spot, holds a share of 18 per cent (according to Kurien). This year, Titan Industries hopes to achieve a turnover of Rs 550 crore (Rs 50 crore more than last fiscal) from the watch division alone. The company's overall turnover is expected to touch Rs 775 crore against Rs 700 crore last year.

To put things into perspective, Titan Industries is a joint venture between the Tata Group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. It started its operations in 1986 under the name Titan Watches Ltd. The Titan brand now has Titan Steel, Insignia, Nebula, Classique, Regalia, Royale and Raga under its umbrella. Fastrack and Dash are independent brands from Titan Industries. And Sonata, which was launched in 1998 under the Titan brand, is now a Tata brand.

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